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Experiments Assess Irrigation Efficiency for Container-Grown Plants

Posted on January 7, 2020

University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences published results of research on irrigation efficiency for container-grown plants in the journal HortScience. Researchers compared container irrigation guided by leaching fraction with evapotranspiration-based irrigation scheduling that used real-time weather information. The researchers found that small daily adjustments to the amount of water applied based on evapotranspiration were not beneficial for saving water compared to adjustments made every one to three weeks, based on leaching fraction tests. The leaching fraction is determined simply by dividing the amount of container drainage by the amount of irrigation water applied to the container.